Parsed Participle

This entry is one week late. I got to New York last Monday, and have been attending classes since Tuesday. The lectures are engaging, and I've already got some homework. I have spent the week getting settled into student lifestyle at NYU. The initial jet-lag was effectively handled with some energy drinks that I picked at Narita Airport (to get rid of extra change in Yen).

I still have a few left.

New York is very cold, but the snow is gone. East Harlem, where I now live, is obviously in every way imaginable, a huge change from the various Tokyo localities where I've lived over the last few years. But it has a lot of character. Not far away is a Mom-and-Pop joint that serves delicious Dominican food. Many a five-dollar meal was had there until a home-food routine was finally established this weekend. A trip to Flushing, Queens has provided a reassuringly high selection of Korean (Kimchi here is delicious) and Japanese groceries. In Manhattan, I have been spoken to in Spanish a few times; I probably ought to start learning it. I am taking the subway until I get down to re-assembling my bike. (I carried it with me on the plane!)

Initial impressions of grad school:

• Fewer classroom hours than I expected, but much more than everyone else (who asks me how many courses I am taking) did.
• There are too many interesting courses, and too little time.
• Homework is harder than lectures.
• Both the central NYU library and the department library are to me, utterly awe-inspiring.
• Lecture-halls (at least the ones I've seen) are strictly non-posh.
• Superficial differences at the inter-departmental level (appearance and styling of infrastructure, etc) are enormous.
• Efficiency: Things are so fast and low-ceremony (at NYU). I got an ID card in less than a minute.
• Campus food is good.
• I think it might be more fun than I expected.